The
Call to Write, Brief 3rd ed.,
by John Trimbur, 2005.The
Prentice Hall Reference Guide, 6th ed., by Muriel Harris, 2005.Pocket
folder or small binder to
use as a Portfolio, containing
all completed course work

Course
Description

The purpose of this course is to
deliver writing instruction and provide opportunities for writing
practice. The central assumption is that writing is a skill to be
acquired through practice and feedback rather than lecture. The
materials we read and the texts that you and your classmates will write
are the heart of the course. The textbook, the instructor, as well as
supplementary readings and other materials will introduce students to a
variety of genres which you will attempt to master through careful
drafting, collaboration, revision, workshopping, and peer review. The
expectation is that students will come to understand writing as a
process of discovery. During workshops, students will be offered
both written and verbal feedback to guide the process of revision. The
formal texts you write during the semester will not be considered final
until you hand in your Portfolio at the end of the semester.

The method of this course is listed
in the course catalog as “lecture,” but that will hardly be the case
during the majority of our class sessions, which will be overwhelmingly
participatory and collaborative. I may lecture (infrequently) to
explain concepts related to effective writing practices, but more
typically my role will be to provide you with methods to practice, to
coordinate exploratory discussions and to guide editorial relationships
among you and your peers. Many of our classes will involve reading and
discussing your own work, the work of fellow students, and the work of
professional writers who can provide inspiration.

The general education goals which
this course is designed to meet include: (*) learning to communicate
effectively in writing; (*) learning to think critically and
analytically; (*) learning to respond thoughtfully to diversity; and
(*) becoming prepared to lead productive and contributing lives.

Course
Components: Reading, Discussing, Writing

The
reading assignments will
involve reading instructional chapters in The Call to Write or The
Prentice Hall Handbook as well as supplementary materials provided by
the instructor in the form of handouts (digital or paper). Students may
be responsible for going online to access and print personal copies of
digital handouts. These will be available on the course website or from
the Library’s E-Reserves. Specific instructions will be provided any
time a digital handout is assigned.

Discussion
is a term that refers to
several different class activities to extend or enhance your thinking
on assigned material: class-wide, large group discussions;
collaborative, small group discussions; and individual response papers.
Students are expected to attend each class prepared to engage in any of
these discussion activities when materials are assigned.

The
writing assignments for this
course reflect our intention to explore three broad types of essay
writing: expressive, expository, and persuasive. The expressive writing
you do will ask you to draw on your personal experience, your personal
observations and perspectives on the world that surrounds you, and your
personal response to texts we explore. The objective writing you do
will ask you to acquire and/or develop critical thinking skills such as
analysis, interpretation, and synthesis. The persuasive writing you do
will challenge you to practice an ethical form of persuasion, highly
valued in the culture of academia, by learning how to construct a
rational argument.

The
reading, discussion, and
informal writing you do throughout the semester will combine to
form
your PARTICIPATION grade at the end of the semester. Absence or lack of
preparation for any of the assigned classwork or homework will affect
your participation grade. The formal writing assignments you do will
combine to form your ESSAY grade. If you fail hand in one of your
formal essays you cannot receive more than a “D” for your final course
grade, regardless of your other scores. If you fail to hand in more
than one of your formal essays, you will receive an “F.” Your
final course grade is calculated by compiling your PARTICIPATION,
ESSAY, and PORTFOLIO scores.

Late
Work. All essays and other
assignments are due on the date assigned. If a serious injury, illness,
or other emergency prevents you or seems likely to prevent you from
meeting a deadline, make arrangements with me before the assignment is
due, or the day it is due. If no specific arrangement has been made,
late penalties will ensue. Late papers will be assessed a penalty of
one letter grade for every two days late (in our age of email, weekends
count). You cannot turn in an assignment for full credit more than one
week after its due date. After one week, your work can only earn a "D"
(numerically 65) or lower.

Portfolio.
Each student is required
to hand in a portfolio of all finished formal assignments at the end of
the semester. The portfolios will be accompanied by a “Portfolio
Checklist” (to be distributed), and a Self-Assessment Questionnaire (to
be distributed). You will be given specific instructions in class as to
the presentation of your portfolio at the midterm and again at the end
of the semester. So, in accordance with the Department of English
policy, you must keep all of your completed essays (and other writings)
in a folder, which you will turn in at the end of the semester. The
department will keep these for reference until the following semester
(Spring 2006), at which time (after the 10th week of the semester) you
may retrieve your folder from my office or from one of the English
department secretaries on the 5th floor in Main Hall. After the 15th
week of the semester the department discards unclaimed portfolios.

Attendance.
I take attendance each
class period. Students are expected to attend every class having read
assigned material or prepared assigned homework. Any student who misses
more than four classes may receive a lowered grade. (Absences
necessitated by a student's participation in a University-sanctioned
event are not penalized if the student follows the "excused absence"
policy stated in the University catalog.) After four absences your
final grade may be lowered according to the severity of your
absenteeism and my own discretion. Students with extended medical
problems or personal emergencies should notify the Dean of Students,
who will contact me about allowing for necessary adjustments. Athletes,
student teachers, band members, etc., should provide me with a note
from the appropriate professor or coach documenting your need to be
away from class. Chronic or extended absence throughout the semester
without consultation or permission from the Dean of Students will be
grounds for failure. These penalties may be waived only in the case of
extreme extenuating circumstances. It is up to the student to provide
official verification from the Dean's office of extenuating
circumstances, and preferably to discuss these issues with me directly
via office visit, phone, or email.

Conferences
are an important part
of the course, and you will have the opportunity to meet with me
several times during the semester. Some conferences will take place in
lieu of class and some will be conducted during class. If you need
further conferencing, you can meet with me during scheduled office
hours. Each conference is an opportunity for personalized editorial
discussion and evaluation of your work's progress.

Writing
Center. If you are having
trouble with a writing assignment, do not hesitate to bring your
problem to my attention or bring your essay to the Writing Center in
Main 203. The Writing Center offers free, high-quality tutoring to any
student who is writing a paper for any course offered by the college.
The staff will assist students at all stages of the writing process:
developing ideas, organizing drafts, revising, and editing. Tutors will
not serve as your proofreaders, however. Their aim is to help you
develop your own skills. You may need to call ahead for an appointment
as the center becomes fairly busy once the semester is under way. The
number is 436-2121. Writing Center hours will be posted shortly after
the start of the semester.

Office
of Services for Students
with Disabilities. I will make accommodations for students with
disabilities. If you have a disability, please make your needs known to
me and contact the Office of Services for Students with Disabilities at
436-3217 for further support or information.

Diversity
and Fair Language. You
are required by University policy to use nondiscriminatory language and
to treat all issues of diversity respectfully (including, but not
limited to, race, sex/gender, ethnicity, disability, and sexual
orientation).

Academic
Honesty. Plagiarism of any
type is a serious academic offense that can result in a failing grade
on an assignment, failure of the course, or referral to academic
judicial affairs, depending upon the instructor's judgment. You are
plagiarizing if you lift either ideas or word-for-word passages from a
published book, article, or website without giving credit to the
author; pass off another student's work as your own; or allow a
“helper” to actually write parts of your paper for you. Don't do it!!!
If you have any questions about how to use sources properly, approach
me or one of the tutors in the Writing Center.

Writing Assignment
Sequence

Four
formal writing assignments and several informal ones will
punctuate the course. There are no exams, although when
significant reading is assigned I may choose to give quizzes to assess
preparedness. Your writing, your active engagement with the materials
we explore, and your participation in class activities are the sole
determinants of your course grade. Keep all completed homework and
classwork in case of a discrepancy between my records and yours. All
formal and informal writing, when returned to you, must be stored in a
Writer’s Portfolio, a sturdy two pocket folder with your name on the
front. This portfolio will be checked soon after midterm (to make sure
you’re maintaining it properly) and handed in to your instructor at the
end of the semester. All graded writing is placed in the Writer’s
Portfolio and provides a hard record of your work in the course.

All informal writing is scored
according to a point system, with most activities worth 3 points,
though sometimes there will be activities worth more. Formal writing is
scored by use of a rubric which reflects my belief in a holistic
approach to evaluation, and attempts to provide students with a clear,
objective understanding of how their grade is derived. Five equal
criteria are applied to determine the quality of your essay: focus,
development, organization, style, and correctness. For each of these
criteria, students can score “Achieved” (100), “Acceptable” (75), or
“Not Achieved” (60). All essays can be revised and resubmitted
for re-evaluation as long as the revision is accompanied by the
original and a note explaining what you attempted to improve in your
revision.Brief Description of Assignments

Students will read and discuss
materials, literary and non-fiction, related to the broad topic of
identity. We’ll explore the question of how we come to be the
people we are now. Like the characters in many of our readings,
we’re all in the process, consciously or unconsciously, of “finding
ourselves,” discovering that inner core, and it’s an ongoing, dynamic
process. One student wrote, “Being in college gives me a chance
to see what it’s like being free from restrictions. I can become
more my own person and who I really want to be.” Finding out “who
you are” or who you really want to be might mean exploring your past in
a memoir. Or it might mean you choose to explore your
present—where you are right now—your current ideas and attitudes—in an
open letter. Literary works like short stories and poetry, though
brief, can be powerful catalysts for self-discovery. Perhaps one
of the readings we share will spark some response in you that you feel
is worth sharing publicly. Whatever your choice, the expressive essay
provides you with an opportunity to explore some chosen aspect of your
self, your identity, with the purpose of communicating who you are to
the world around you.

As a class we’ll study a topic (to
be announced) in order to become familiar with the ways in which
several forms of objective writing can be usefully applied. Once
these forms, or “genres,” are sufficiently demonstrated, students will
then choose their own topics of interest to produce objective writing
that either profiles, reports upon or critically reviews its subject.

Students will have the opportunity
to work in teams for this assignment. Each team will create one
substantial casebook aimed at fully informing open-minded readers about
a controversial, debatable issue. The casebook will also include
an argumentative conclusion designed to persuade readers to take a
particular position on that issue, which the team has arrived at
through careful study of the casebook materials. The means of
persuasion will be based on the model of rational argument discussed in
class and detailed in a handout which will be distributed (“Guide to
Rational Argument”). To facilitate the search for proper sources
for the casebook, our class will attend an orientation session at
Francis Harvey Green Library. The orientation will help students
become familiar with the many complex search strategies needed to
successfully navigate the library’s wealth of information.
Learning to critically evaluate information, whether from a library or
Internet source, is one of the several important educational objectives
of this project.

Ideally, college students are at a
stage in their educational careers when they undertake the challenge of
becoming independent, critical thinkers. Instead of being
dependent on others to dictate how they must think, they embrace the
opportunity to think for themselves. Emerging from passive habits
of dependency isn’t always an easy or comfortable step to take, but
it’s a necessary part of the process of becoming fully educated.
College students are therefore expected to form their own judgments
about the world they observe, the information that’s presented to
them, and the information they discover independently. The ability
to present an informed, respectful, and reasoned discussion on
any significant topic is what distinctively marks an educated
person. For this final assignment students will choose a topic
based on an observation of some aspect of American culture and craft a
response in the form of a commentary. The commentary, capping off
our semester, requires you to bring all of your writing skills to
bear. It can be written expressively, objectively, or
persuasively—or a careful blending of all three purposes—depending on
the context you create. The writer should be able to demonstrate an
acquired knowledge about which approach is most appropriate for the
paper as a whole and at any given point in the paper by effectively
analyzing the “rhetorical situation.” When is it useful to write
expressively, offering your own unique perspective and sharing your
personal experience with readers? When is it most effective to
gain objective distance and explore your subject objectively?
What information do your readers need? What’s the best way to
present it to them? What analysis can you provide? What
ideas might readers object to? Are you going to try to persuade
readers who may object to your views, simply acknowledge differences,
or ignore them?

Course Outline

Please note that the
assignments
and/or dates on this schedule are subject to change during the course
of the semester. Changes will always be announced in class and on the
course website(s).

Week
#

Activities

1

INTRODUCTION
TO THE COURSE. Exploratory writing: how to define the
“essay”? How do we recognize “good writing”—what are the qualities of
good writing? Why should writers try to understand their “rhetorical
situation”? What’s a useful way to think about the “writing process”
and how does seeing writing as “a process of discovery” impact our
goals in this course? And, what is “identity”? Readings:
Handouts: “The
Rhetorical Situation”; Prentice Hall
Reference Guide on “the writing process”
(pages 1-20).

2

Begin
discussing (1) the specific goals of expressive writing, genres
of expressive writing, (2) “identity” in light of assigned readings,
(3) “description” and “narration” as modes for writing expressively.
Readings: Handouts: “You Are Exhausted By Risk”; “Poems and Stories:
Identity.” Call to Write: Chapters 1, 2, 4 and 5. Writing: Write
a
freestyle “mini-paper” on the topic of “IDENTITY.” You choose the form,
style, content, and mode of presentation. Aim for expressiveness and
substance. Mini-paper due Wednesday, Jan. 25.

3

No class on Wed. Feb. 1
Readings
due; discussion of assigned readings and handouts (possible quiz).
LETTERS, MEMOIRS, AND RESPONSE TO LITERATURE. Letter
writing, memoir, and response to literature as genres for expressive
writing. Discuss (1) paper presentation options: the essay, the
open
letter. (2) strategies for responding to literature and writing
about
personal experience. Writing: Mini-papers on memoir, open letter and
response to literature. Begin topic development for expressive
essay.

4

Topic
development for expressive essay due. Drafting, collaborative
activities, and continued discussion relating to the expressive
essay.
In-class writing workshops for the expressive paper require students to
bring at least 2 copies of a typed draft (3-5 pages) to class for peer
and instructor review.*

Topic
development for objective project continued. Drafting, collaborative
activities, and continued discussion relating to the objective
essay. In-class writing workshops for the objective paper require
students to bring at least 2 copies of a typed draft (3-5 pages) to
class for peer and instructor review.*

8

Individual conferences to discuss objective
project will be scheduled. Meeting place: Main 312. Paper #2:
Objective Project due Friday, March 10. In class
reflection on the differences between expressive and objective
writing. Begin discussing writing with a persuasive
purpose. Readings:The Call to Write,
chapters 3, 9.

9

Spring Break: No classes
on March 13, 15, 17

10

Discuss
assigned readings and handouts. Collaborative teams will form to
discuss and conduct preliminary research on potential casebook
topics. Then teams will formally submit their Casebook topics,
along with a summary of their preliminary research. We’ll begin
discussing strategies for evaluating and selecting Casebook
sources.

11

Class will meet in FHG Library (exact
day/time TBA in class) for a LIBRARY ORIENTATION. A reference
librarian will present specific instructions for using the library’s
sophisticated information indexes and databases that will help you
gather the best available sources for your casebook. We’ll spend
class time in the library allowing teams to work together to search for
Casebook sources using the resources introduced during the orientation.
Collaborative teams will then work on analyzing and evaluating their
casebook sources and writing an argumentative, persuasive conclusion.

12

Teams will collaborate to draft, edit,
assemble, and visually display their Casebook projects.

Group conferences to discuss
argumentative casebook project will be scheduled. Meeting place:
Main 312.

13

Teams
will continue to collaborate in assembling and (possibly) presenting
their Casebook projects.

Begin discussing options for the final project. Readings: The Call to Write, chapters 9, 11.

14

Discuss
assigned readings and assignment sheet for the final project. Individual conferences to
discuss independent project will be scheduled. Meeting place: Main 312.

15

Distribution
of Portfolio Checklist and Self-Assessment Questionnaire.
In-class writing workshops for the objective paper require students to
bring at least 2 copies of a typed draft (3-5 pages) to class for peer
and instructor review.*

16

Paper #4: Independent Project due on
Monday, May 1.
Wed. May 3: optional conferences to discuss portfolio assignment, due
at the Final Exam.

Finals
Week

Turn in Portfolios with
completed Checklist and Self-Assessment Questionnaire. You’re
finished—have a great summer vacation!